And what did I behold but my mother’s old wooden trunk, resting in a corner. I dived for its dust-soft handle and heaved open its lid; an explosion of dry grime and a short stack of letters met my gaze, and my fingers discovered the papers were indeed corporeal. I think I had been half expecting leprechaun gold in that cottage, or at least small, strange men proposing dangerous quests. Instead I held foolscap with ink scrawled over it, ink which might very well tell me what I had inherited and what I might venture to do about it.
To escape with the sole prize I had come seeking, save Agatha herself, seemed altogether too good to be true: but I did, and twenty minutes hence had stowed my treasure under my mattress without a single person knowing I had left the main house at all.
• • •
What became of the original staff?” I asked, sniffing at a plate of heartily spiced potato and cabbage with mustard seeds. “Surely this place was populated by English servants, before.”
“I regret to say that they were made to feel rather unwelcome.” Mr. Sardar Singh spooned out portions of chicken curry and saffron-scented rice to Sahjara and me; twice before he had dined in our company, and I found myself avidly hoping he would do so again. “We brought with us an unknown master, foreign tastes . . . their defection was natural.”
“But never forced?” I questioned, envisioning my elderly Agatha scrubbing floors in some rot-ridden dispensary.
“Of course not—heavens, I hope none of them ever felt so. Some had family they wished to return to, others dreams of travel. They were all of them dismissed with a thousand pounds, after all.”
“A thousand . . .” I echoed. It was the sort of money a titled landholder or a City purveyor of stocks might have brought in yearly, and it was a princely figure to a domestic worker.
“Miss Stone, I hope that I haven’t overstepped the bounds of English propriety. The figure is irre—”
“Of course it isn’t irrelevant—Mr. Thornfield could have got away uncensored distributing bonuses at a hundredth the price.”
“The master of the house saw no need to be parsimonious,” he returned, but I saw he was pleased.
“Not often the way,” I quipped, “with masters. Please do sit down.”
Mr. Singh laughed, seating himself several places distant and helping himself to the steaming dishes. “At any rate, there were alterations to be effected, and long-time occupants are always dismayed at usurpers renovating their domain.”
Mr. Singh was correct; the cellars, at least, were being subjected to significant changes, and it dismayed me. Workmen arrived before I rose in the morning, greeting me with the distant invisible clink, clink of chisels and spades as I walked to the morning room to breakfast with Sahjara; at five in the afternoon when I released her, they filed by me out the servants’ entrance, anointed with mineral-smelling mud. Twice had I begun marching down the dank stairs I already knew so well, but a member of the staff always materialised with a cordial Might I assist you? and all attempts at reconnaissance rendered thereby impossible.
The work rankled. Our cellars had been inhospitable, the remnants of ancient foundations—neither crypts nor vaults, simply stones and pillars. I did not know what Mr. Thornfield could possibly want with caves not even fit to store wine properly (a failing of which Aunt Patience was surpassingly proud).
“When did the cellar renovations commence?”
“Three months ago,” Sahjara replied. “Six months after we moved in and began redecorating—the place was dreadful, all stuffy chintzes.”
I smiled, for I agreed with her. “Is the cellar to house a wine collection? Mr. Thornfield seems to own a connoisseur’s soul.”
“He does indeed,” Mr. Singh agreed.
This was less than forthcoming.
“Is it for storage, then? This household—the exotic spices, the incense—it must be difficult to maintain here in England?”
“Not so difficult as you might imagine. Mrs. Garima Kaur, who is a highly competent individual, travels monthly to London to meet with merchants who import Punjabi essentials. She sees to it that Mrs. Jas Kaur is kept in basmati and dhal and so forth, and the rest we can easily buy from neighbouring farms.”
“Then perhaps a Sikh chapel for your rituals?” I ventured next.
“Oh, I’m sure he has plans for the place, Miss Stone.” Mr. Singh smiled effortlessly, passing me a dish of what appeared to be yogurt. “I myself shall be contented when these local stonemasons—good men